SINGAPORE — Over three-and-a-half years, a receptionist at a surgical clinic siphoned away part of the cash that her employer had entrusted her to manage, and amended records to cover up her crimes.

Sharmaine Andrianto pocketed S$88,820 from April 2014 to November 2017 before her bosses discovered the crimes. She has since made full restitution.

On Friday (Oct 25), the 48-year-old was sentenced to six months’ jail after pleading guilty to one charge of criminal breach of trust as a servant. Three other charges were taken into consideration for sentencing.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Lim Yu Hui told the court that this was not her first such offence. She had been fined S$6,000 in 1994 for criminal breach of trust, and jailed for six months in 1995 for a similar offence.

HOW EARNINGS WERE HANDLED AT CLINIC

The court heard that Andrianto began working at HK Tan Surgery, located at Mount Elizabeth Medical Centre, on Feb 11 in 2014. The clinic deals with general surgery and aesthetic laser treatments.

Her duties included manning the registration counter, dispensing medicine and collecting payments.

She was also allowed to access the Clinic Programme Manager on the computer system, which stored patient records, as well as payment and medication details. 

As part of her job, she was tasked with generating a daily sales report through the programme, as well as a daily settlement through the credit card terminal, at the end of the day. 

She would then give the reports to the clinic directors, who would check if the cash tallied with the sales report. 

One of the directors would then hand the cash to Andrianto the next morning for her to put in a tamper-proof envelope and give to a Certis Cisco officer, who would deposit the money into the clinic’s corporate account.

HOW SHE POCKETED MONEY

However, Andrianto would keep a sum of the money for herself before putting the rest into the envelope. She did this two or three times a week.

She also amended the payment records in the Clinic Programme Manager at the end of every month, so that they matched the banking slips.

She then deleted the original receipts issued to patients and printed out amended receipts that matched the banking slips to cover her tracks. She made similar amendments to other documents before submitting them to the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore for tax purposes.

Andrianto said that she grew more confident over the years because she thought her bosses would not be able to detect the discrepancies.

It was only on Nov 27, 2017 that one of them discovered what she did. Ms Dora Chew had been covering Andrianto’s duties while she was on leave.

Ms Chew asked an auditor to check the transactions after noticing discrepancies, before confronting Andrianto over the unaccounted S$88,820 when she returned.

Andrianto later admitted to taking the money, which she had spent on herself and her family, and amending the records. Ms Chew made a police report on Dec 19, 2017.